The Magnum Opus !

This is my 100th post ! I was keen to finish my mini-novel - in fact, that was the first story I wrote several years ago, but never completed it. This novel was one of the triggers to start this blog, but its funny that it has made as the 100th post ! Thanks to prodding from someone near/dear, and thanks to the cross-country plane time, here it is, completed.

So here goes... I'm posting this as multiple chapters, one chapter a week. Hopefully, it would work!!

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THE BAIT

Prologue (posted 22/May)
Chapter 1: Opening Gambit - the Good Guys, setting it up (posted 26/May)
Chapter 2: The Past (posted 31/May)
Chapter 3: The Middle Game - the bait (posted 6/Jun)
Chapter 4: The Event
Chapter 5: The End Game - Cleaning up
Epilogue

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Prologue:

Vel had been ushered into the rear of the aircraft with rest of the passengers left behind. He was tense waiting for the signal. Then he heard three shots ring out from the front. Trusting his commando training in a worst case scenario, Vel sprinted to the business class section of the plane, stopped behind the curtain and took a silent peek with a heightened sense of alertness. There was carnage – with dead all around. Nawaz Khan was the only one alive and he had the gun in his hands and he turned, with the gun pointing at Vel….

Chapter 1: Opening Gambit – The Good Guys – Setting it up

The Scrap

Tariq should have been rejoicing – he had been just told by his boss that he has been chosen for a plum assignment; Instead, Tariq was furious. During the recent past, on a few occasions he had let go of the barbs. It was not easy but he was used to it and he was brought up and trained to ignore it. It had become more frequent since the patriotism had been usurped by a few sections, more so since the rise of rightist forces. But today it was different; Sikander Singh, who was transferred to same team Tariq was on about 4 months ago, had made it a point to needle Tariq at every possible instance. Today it went beyond the line…

Tariq was still furious – he was taking out his fury in the Karate dojo. Earlier, this morning, Major. Uday Chatterjee had called for a quick briefing session of his department. He had talked about imminent terrorist threat in generalities and specific intelligence that a possible hijack or a 9/11 type of attack is being planned within the country. He had chosen a team of two – Tariq and Murugavel (aka Vel) for a specific high-profile and high-risk assignment and the rest would support them. He had asked the two to meet with him in the evening at 5PM.

The Major left the hall and as the team began to disperse, Sikander looking at Tariq remarked, “The country is being destroyed by Muslim terrorists; why would another of the same ilk do anything to prevent that?”
It was the first time that Sikander got so direct with his innuendo. Furious, Tariq asked,
“what the bloody hell do you mean ?”
“You know, bloody well, what I mean”
“I will rip your heart out…”, said Tariq and jumped at Sikander; there was pushing and shoving with others getting into this; Vel separated Tariq,
“Tari, let go, it is not worthwhile, there will be another time”
“I will be looking forward to that”, baited Sikander

It was now pre-Lunch. Tariq and his partner (and who also became a very close friend through the past 3+ years in TIW) Vel were at the dojo ahead of the class; Tariq was letting go of the steam, doing his kicks and punches. Holding the punching bag for him, Vel wondered if Tariq was going to rip apart the punching bag. Just before the class start at 12 Noon, others filtered in, including Sikander (who claimed that he was an expert in another form of Karate). Sikander looked like he was in for a scrap and walked dangerously close to Tariq; Vel sensing that would happen had placed himself in between the two. Sensei Subburaman, a retired army major, walked in at 12 and after the initial warm-up, and kathas, announced the class would have shi-ai (sparring session), with standard rules; 3 points per shi-ai; when one scores a point, the fight stops and restarts; the stop-restart is to avoid a street-fight. Unfortunately and not knowing what transpired the morning events, he had paired Sikander with Tariq. By the time the sparring session started, Tariq was very calm – he seemed to be in complete control of himself.

First round had started. Sikander danced around darted in and out with his front jab. Tariq, who seemed to be in a zone, easily swatted them out. Once Sikander tired himself out with his dancing, Tariq feinted with his own jab; Sikander fell for that speed and went for defending that; as he was doing that, Tariq followed the fake with a front kick to Sikander solar plexus. He had scored a point and clearly the round was over; as he was withdrawing to start the second round, Sikander hit him in the jaw, as if he was countering Tariq’s attack. Tariq brushed off the apology that ensued from Sikander and assumed his sparring stance – he felt a numbness in his jaw, tasted blood in his mouth and knew the swelling would start soon. The second round started as the first round had. Tariq again warded off attacks from Sikander with ease and had decided that first time in his life, he will pay back in kind; “well, what the heck, there is always first for everything”. As Sikander came forward with one of his front kick, Tariq quickly stepped to his left moving forward to the right of Sikander, drawing level with him, blocked the kick with his right hand and unleashed a round house kick. Typically, that kick in a sparring is aimed at the solar-plexus; but today, Tariq was beyond caring, he aimed at Sikander face; when it connected, Sikander doubled up with a scream of pain. He got up holding his nose with blood in his hands. Sensei, stepped in and stopped the fight and sent Sikander to the hospital and Tariq to corner for his punishment of 100 push-ups and 100 abdomen kicks.

Meeting:

It was 5’^o clock. Both Vel and Tariq were standing in attention in front of Maj. Chatterjee. Major started the conversation,

“Tariq, I had heard about the incidence in the gym. This is very disappointing”
“Sorry sir, but, to be honest, I’m notr”, Tariq replied.
“Sir, you should hear what Sikander did this morning and then at the dojo”, Vel interjected.
Major stopped Vel short - “That’s no explanation”, Turning to the other, he queried, “ Tariq?”
“I apologize sir, it won’t happen again”. After a pause, Tariq asked, “However, can I add something, sir ?”
“Go ahead”
“Sir, The real issue in this country now, when people like you look at people like us, we are first looked at as Muslims and then as Indians. Even during peaceful times, each and every one of us has to constantly prove our Indian-ness Sir. Somehow, I hope that isn’t spawning new terrorist elsewhere”

The room fell silent for a while. The Major broke the silence,

“Sit down both of you; I need to talk to both of you on this assignment. What do you know about Maulana Mazhar Khan ?”
Vel broke in, “Sir, he is the one who led the mid-90s insurgency in Kashmir; and after the successful brokering of peace in the 2000s, he went underground somewhere in Pakistan”.

Peace had indeed been brokered between Pakistan and India. A combination of US tilt towards India after the India voting at IAEA against Iran, softening of the LOC post the Kashmir earth quake had accelerated both the countries towards Peace.

Maj. Chatterjee nodded, “and when we established peace with Pakistan last year, and under pressure from Western agencies, it was getting too hot for him there. He apparently fled from there and was supposed to have come back into the country and is hiding somewhere in the north. He is heading a terrorist organization named Jamiat Ul Islamia (JUI). Inspired by the 9/11, he is planning an attack within the country – our information is either a 9/11 type of attack on one of our buildings or a hijack with inside collusion”.

He added, “Here is the dossier, go over it. We will talk again at 9AM tomorrow. Dismissed”.

Tariq and Vel rose, saluted and began to leave.

Maj. Chatterjee called out, “by the way Tariq…” Tariq stopped and turned around, as Vel left the room. “Major Subburaman and I spoke. I’ve recommended Sikander be transferred out”

Tariq remained silent.

The major continued, looking Tariq in his eye, “Tariq, I wish everyone else had your commitment to the regiment and country; I am proud to have you in my regiment. I will see you both at 9 tomorrow”.

Tariq started to thank the major, but the major was already looking into another file. He turned around and joined Vel in the corridor.

The Plan:

Tariq and Vel had just finished their breakfast and there was untold excitement in them – they had hardly talked with each other during the morning run or during the breakfast, probably deeply lost in the thoughts of what the assignment would be. Their initial attempt at conversation petered out. When they reached the major’s office, he was already in there talking on the phone and seemed had put almost 4 hours of work already.

Maj Chatterjee looked up from the phone and gestured them to take their seats. He handed them each a folder as he continued talking on the phone. He was saying to someone on the phone, presumably his superior, “…Thank you, sir. We will need complete support and anonymity and strictly need to know basis on this assignment”. He looked up at both Tariq and Vel, winked and continued, “I’m having my best people on this”.

He replaced the receiver on the hook, he asked,
“What do you know of changes in the airlines post 9/11 ?”
Vel answered, “Unidentified Air marshal for a while, some basic commando training for the pilots”.
“As time went on, I’ve heard the airlines were against having air-marshal in the flight; solely for commercial reasons and they believe that the threat perception has come down significantly”, Tariq interjected.
“Right”, said the major, “Instead as a part of basic commando training, the pilots were also given basic training on shooting. The airlines installed an automatic gun in the cock-pit, secured inside a safe”.

Both Tariq and Vel looked surprised.

“Yes, this practice was started some 8 months ago”, Maj Chatterjee continued, “however, the gun can only be taken out after the Chief pilot and 2 other cockpit crew punch in the number for the safe. This apparently, is to avoid pilot based madness as it was alleged with the Egyptian Airlines in the late 90s”

Both the field operatives knew this was going somewhere and waited, finding their excitement growing.

“We had an intelligence tip-off that there is a captain who would give away the gun to potential hijackers for the hijacking to be carried out. You have read about the JUI in the dossier...", the Major trailed off absent-mindedly waving towards a bunch of files on his desk. "...The JUI have this captain on their radar and if they get to him, the consequences would be terrible. I would like to bait the captain out and put him away for ever. That’s the assignment”. He paused; there was a silence in the room for a while.

The captain looked at Tariq – Tariq seemed glazed over. Tariq’s mind was working furiously. He got up from his seat and paced the room a couple of times. An idea was forming in his mind…

He turned to Vel and the major, “Sir, I’ve another plan…”

The Plan B:

As Major and Vel listened to the Tariq’s plan, they could feel the tension in the room and possibilities. It was a plan most daring and most dangerous and most comprehensive – it will be a major coup against terrorism. Although the TIW had enormous powers and autonomy, for this plan, Major needed to go back to his superior for approval who will perhaps need to go the secretary in the ministry; It was not going to be easy, but that his problem, he will have to solve it and he will, and at the same time ensuring that plan is not known outside 3 of them and perhaps one more. He didn’t believe the sieve that is bureaucracy. He will have to manage his lies.

For the next 5 hours, well past Lunch, they sat in the room and discussed the pros and cons and each and every possibility in detail. At around 2PM, the major had asked for some lunch to be served and dismissed both his officers.

“Go back and think more about it on your own and come back at 6PM”.

At about 6PM, both Tariq and Vel were back at major’s office. When they broke after going through each and every possibility, they had a draft plan by 2AM in the morning. It was also clear, that both of them will have to be transferred out of the base due to the very high sensitivity of the plan and will set-up base in an undisclosed area, where Major is the only other person they would see. They had by that time, in broad terms, had set up contact points, codes and modus operandi; and because of the expanse and the need for travel, Vel and Tariq knew that they would hardly meet in the next 3-4 months. Little they knew that will never meet in the next few months, and when they eventually do, it would be in circumstances, so uncertain and that potentially can set them up against each other.

Chapter 2: The Past

Tariq Ahmed:

Tariq aka Tariq Ahmed was born in a small-town in Tamil Nadu near Nagapattinam. His family and world were made up of his parents, mother a teacher in the local school and father running a up and down tailoring shop and his older brother, Shafiq, who seemed to be constantly ailing of something or the other and was a paraplegic. He was brought up in a household where his parents were righteous and god-fearing. More, they brought up both their kids with a strong sense of social and civic commitment and what was wrong and right (they had a picture of Gandhiji in their hall, which also doubled up as bed-room). Shafiq hardly went to school, whereas Tariq seemed was outstanding at everything he did – with minimum effort at studies, he constantly seemed to top in his class; he had a great flair for sports and was exactly opposite to his brother, whenever the schools were closed for holidays he helped out his father in small chores in tailoring – within a short time, at the age of 11, he could cut and stitch dresses. In short, in that innocent and young age, Tariq was an extremely well-behaved boy with outstanding talent, an amazing sense of inner-strength constantly fed by his parent’s teachings and extremely positive thinking. He was a happy kid and was well appreciated in the neighborhood. Then two things changed his life in a space of 3 years…

When Tariq was 13, Shafiq was afflicted by strange sickness that Tariq could not understand and he passed away. Tariq’s mother was shattered. Everyday in that place reminded her of Shafiq and his father merchant business was also in shambles. After the grieving of one year, the family shifted to Coimbatore, with his mother getting to teach at a local school in the rural areas around the city; his father opened a small tailoring shop outside their house. Shafiq’s absence and realization that he was the only son for his parents seemed to mature Tariq more and he carried himself with an air that was far beyond his age. He had also become taller and with his proclivity for physical play, filled out nicely and was looking more like a young man… He also, on a whim joined the local Karate dojo and seemed a natural for it. The family, probably more because of Tariq’s presence, became a respected family in that street and their family was called as “Bai’s House” (Bai-veedu, in Tamil).

He clearly remembered the day, when the 2^nd event had happened. It was one of those things that Coimbatore seemed to have recently afflicted with. It was during the diwali and it was one of the topical times, when Bai’s tailoring shop did the best business of the year. Somewhere, something silly happened and the communal riots had flared up – Tariq’s father, was in his shop when the rioters stormed his shop – bruised him severely, burnt his shop and damaged the clothes, both stitched and unstitched. The rioters were lead by a small-time charge-sheeter, who was aspiring to be a local councillor. It was Bai’s neighbors pleaded with the rioters to spare Bai of his life and saved him. Tariq, who was in class 12^th then, perhaps for the first time in his life, felt what fury and anger meant. He was infuriated at the senselessness of the event and infuriated by the people who perpetrated it and at the same time thankful for the neighbours to have saved his father’s life. Bai, sensing Tariq’s mind for revenge, sat Tariq down at edge of the government hospital bed and told him how some people from the same community had saved his life and there are fanatics everywhere. Quoting Gandhiji’s eye-for-an-eye and pointing out the duality of the people who inflicted him with the damage were of the same ilk of those people who had saved him, he urged Tariq to do something about it to correct such a situation. Once again, thinking far beyond his age, Tariq came to a resolve, a resolve that he undertook that he will eliminate evil in all forms where possible; at that time, Tariq could not have known his simple idealistic resolve will in future have a far reaching consequence to the country…

Tariq, who passed his school exam with flying colors (was 1^st in the district and 8^th in the state), chose to do Bachelor of Arts in Economics and then prepared for the IPS exam with a maniacal intensity and resolve. During this time, his father who never recovered from the injury, perhaps more mental, had to close down the shop, joined as a security guard in a local factory – there were times, when Bai was abused, but Bai took that with an equanimity that Tariq had inherited. In his Civil Services exam, Tariq was placed 19^th and had no hesitation choosing IPS over IAS and other possibilities that were open to him. Within IPS, once he had heard about Intelligence wing it was obvious to him and others that he would apply for it. During the mandatory training period, Bai passed away, perhaps secure that his son would do something. Tariq did realize at that time, how much influence his father had on him; it was a reinforcement of what he has to do. At the end of the training, the top 10 of the class were asked to write an exam that tested their analytical ability, their physical ability and their flair for languages. Tariq easily topped the analytical ability; his training in Karate for the past 11 years (he was a 2^nd degree black-belt now) helped him easily finish the physical tests ahead of others. He was placed 2^nd in the language test, behind a rich small-town Malayalee (“with a tamil name”, he thought wryly) – Vel. Post-test, Tariq and Vel were introduced to Major Uday Chatterjee, who was in-charge Terrorist Intelligence Wing (TIW) in the National Intelligence Bureau and were offered a posting as field-operative-trainee. Tariq, merely thought it to be a natural destination of where he wanted to go and instantly agreed. He was now the ‘spy’ that is so glamorized by the movies – but for Tariq it was merely hard work and a path towards what he wanted to do.

Basheer Ahmed:

Basheer (called lovingly as Basha by his doting parents) was born in a lower middle-class family as the only child in bustling metropolis of Mumbai. Basheer’s father worked in a state government and they had lived in the suburbs of Mumbai in Andheri, which was closer to the airport. They lived a typical Mumbai lower middle-class life: Mother taking care of the household, looking for best prices on anything and everything, so that they can save away a little bit of money every month. His father, Mr. Waseem Ali, awoke at 4AM in the morning to travel by the suburban train and bus for more than an hour to get to his work. Consistent with every middle-class family’s dream of getting Basheer a better life, he started his schooling in a place, which was slightly upscale and over-the-pocket for their life.

Basheer’s awakening to their state-of-life came when he was about 7. One day, when he missed his school van getting back, he was dropped at his street corner by his class-mate Prakash, in a car that, to Basheer, looked as large as his living room and perhaps more comfortable than it. That was the time when Basheer wanted out, of what he began to consider life of drudgery. At the age of 11, when he found purse in the school ground with several 100 rupees notes in it, he did not even miss a beat in throwing the purse away and taking the money and living the life that would parallel Prakash’s, even it was for a day. By the time he was 13, he had less and less of scruples of what shouldn’t be done. By 15, when he finished schooling, he knew what he wanted to do, he will be a pilot – it will give him the glamorous life that he craved for and perhaps, it was symbolically getting-out too. To get the money needed for pilot training, Basheer did not really bat an eye-lid to go to lengths, even if it were outside law’s parenthesis. He also had the smartness to pick the right people for his scam and selling his scam. In 1^st year of his college, Basheer went to great lengths to secure the exam question papers, borrowing money from the lenders at exorbitant rates to pay the people who had access to them; few days later, after targetted selling of the leak to a select few ‘customers’ who can afford an high price, he made neat sum of profit in the vicinity of Rs.3 Lakhs after paying back the loan within 22 days. That profit went to his pilot-training kitty. By the time he was 25, Basheer had sponsored himself through Pilot training and was hired as the in-flight navigator by Government airlines, which was to him the first step to get the private airlines and more money. By the time he was 29, he was a pilot and had command of a plane. He still wasn’t looking to get married or settling down and he found that a nuisance to his path to utopia. In any case, the pilot and the way he looked after himself got him the girls he wanted.

Murugavel Balakrishnan:

Vel was lost in thought... His thoughts went back to his past. He was a son of a rich land-owner in Kerala, bordering Southern Tamil Nadu – his father had multiple and flourishing business, centered on a hugely successful exports business. He was the only son with 3 other elder sisters, with a gap of 7 years between himself and the third. He had heard the story, that his parents after praying for a son at a particular temple in the neighboring state, had gotten him – hence the name Murugavel which is quite alien in those parts. He had seen them shower him (to some extent, a punishment) with love and kindness. He was the prince of house. Since there was never an issue about money, he had got whatever he wanted or whatever his parents and sisters thought he may want. He had the best of everything. When most students walked to school, he was always dropped to school in a car, mostly 2-3 different cars within a week. His school mates never could jell with him, although he wanted them to. Somehow, he tried hard but never seemed to be good at it – in a small town the rich bridge wasn’t the easy one to cross for the rest. Also, as he grew up, he found two things – that he wanted to get out of his home town and live a normal life, away from all his riches; secondly, he had a flair for languages, other than that, he was good at most things that he did, but never the best in the field. By the time, he was in college, he had reconciled to the fact that he will never be the top dog, but will be in the top 5 and his strengths were in being the best supporting player. He was perfectly ok in what he was doing now – supporting Tariq who was in the field. Someone else may feel a tinge of jealousy and would want to be out as number 1; not Vel, he was extremely satisfied and happy what he was doing and enjoyed it – he had understood that not being #1 was his calling; and he was merely glad that this job had taken him away from his hometown and he could slip into an egalitarian anonymity...

Chapter 3: The Middle Game – The Bait

Dec 5^th, around 11.20AM:

It was nearly 6 months past since the plan was first discussed. He had not met his friend Tariq during these months. But progress had been made – slow but very deliberate, for there cannot be any slip-ups. It had been a tortuous inch towards the goals.

Vel thoughts were interrupted by the ring of his scrambled phone. He knew it was Tariq on the other side of the line... He picked it up, “Yes?”

“I have zeroed in on the pilot – Basheer Ahmed; he has been contacted and he is apparently very much ready to play – one down”, said Tariq on the other end of the line. “On the other two, the first meeting is being set-up in the next two days; I’ve a hunch it would happen tonight. This is where the link between the pilot and the preacher is being made”, said Tariq on the line.

Vel knew the preacher was the Maulana. He asked, “What do you need?” – Vel did not need to take notes; the conversation was getting recorded somewhere, that he can play it back, if required. He was sure Major was awake and listening in on the conversation.

Tariq pointed out what he needed. Vel responded, “It will be delivered to you in the drop box 3”.

Tariq had hung-up the phone.

Dec 5^th, 10.00PM:

Ahmed Akbari, the second-in-command of Jamiat Ul Islami, was in a pensive mood; there was a sense of elation in him – although he was second-in-command, he did not really think himself of so; he simply lived to serve the Maulana. Ahmed had listened in rapt attention few months ago, when Maulana had talked about one strike. They knew and understood that something grandiose as the Parliament attack was bound to fail. It was idiocy of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed to attempt something like that – that had only served to make things tougher for pragmatist such as themselves. Ahmed believed it was stupid to under-estimate the Indian Government and politicos’ will to come together in such adversity. So choose the target right, design to align a few variables and then strike. He can still recall what the Maulana had said – ‘one strike at the heart at the appropriate time, and enemy will be weakened tremendously. We should pick one target that will get the world to sit up and notice what we are doing; then we should not have any problems in recruiting and financing”.

Ahmed knew the Maulana was right; the opportunity to do that one strike was looming right in front him; a mercenary was willing to give access to a weapon for lot of money (sometimes it amused Ahmed that he is called the mercenary!!). A loose but very committed cannon, named Nawaz Khan, had the conduit to the pilot. Maulana himself had recommended Nawaz’s name, but Ahmed had done some research on Nawaz independently before recruiting him into the project. All he needed to do was to google and re-verified his findings with someone in the government service – he smiled wondering what people would do for some money; if greed dies, terrorism would be the first casualty.

Nawaz Khan had come up from a poor family in Lal Darwaza area of Ahmedabad. Ahmed had learned that Nawaz was 4^th son (of 8 in the family) of a shop keeper in the walled city; they had lost their belongings and his father in one of the localized mini communal riots that happen all the time, but hardly gets reported. Nawaz had roamed from state to state; a great target for potential recruiters, which he eventually was in Uttar Pradesh. After recruitment, he was sent for terrorist training, most specifically in fire-arms, bomb-making and close-combat in the city terrain. Nawaz was caught in New Delhi during one of the failed attempt to blow-up a shopping complex and jailed. What caught the attention of Maulana was, in a daring move, he had killed two of his guards, blew up the vehicle, further maiming 3 other guards and had escaped. Fearing loss of face just ahead of the election, the government had hushed up the whole event. Maulana had sensed an opportunity and had sent his recruiters after Nawaz Khan.

Now there was this opportunity. From the first contact in mid-october, Ahmed had finally gotten to Nawaz through a series of intermediaries. Nawaz had also brought the golden goose to him – in form of a pilot, who was willing to do a couple of things for them, for huge amount of money. Ahmed had nothing but scorn and hatred for people such as this pilot – who have no ideological mooring and are willing to do anything for money; but he will live with this, if only it will get him to reach their goal quickly.

It was the typical shady joint in the deep innards of Bangalore. Bangalore was chosen as meeting point by Ahmed as it was easily the most cosmopolitan of all the cities. At the same time, if you tip the ‘authorities’ well enough, they seem to see the other way and would tend to ignore minor offences. A decrepit restaurant near Russell market was chosen for the meeting; Ahmed, who was clean-shaven and had a very short hair-cut had chosen a separate box, that can seat about 4. He was just reading the newspaper and was getting absorbed in new mobile phone that is being touted as the ultimate tool, he had heard a soft ‘Salaam-Alaikum’. He looked up and saw a young man, who had silently slipped into the opposite seat. The young-man was thin and wiry, spectacled with a scar running from his cheek to his chin, but most of it was masked by the stylish goatee and the thin mustache. He was aged between 28 and 30. As is wont, Ahmed looked his visitor in the eye and tried to gauge him – he thought he saw steel there…

“I’m Nawaz khan”, he had introduced him simply.

“Valaikum Salaam Nawaz”. Ahmed did not introduce himself; looking up he found the young man could pass as one of the software people that Bangalore had in abundance.

They called in the waiter and got the order out of the way and got into business. They did not certainly want to be seen together. Quickly, they got into the crux of the point – executing a 9/11 type of hijack; Nawaz talked about the pilot he had come across in Mumbai. The pilot was willing to do the transfer of fire-arm to enable the hijack.

Nawaz had added jokingly, “if only we could get a high-value target in the same flight... The infidel wanted 2M$ for the work; I think he will accept a half-a-million dollars; his other demand was the transfer of gun should have look liked a forced one. After the hijack, he will pilot the plane to one of the safe haven and will get lost in there”, said Khan.

“That will be done”, Ahmed was impatient– the talk about the high-value target peaked Ahmed’s interest, “The stars have arrayed”, he thought. “Hold on, lets talk about the target…”

Ahmed and Nawaz talked quietly for the next 20 minutes or so. At the end of it, Ahmed could sense victory and believed the plan could work; at the same time, he knew that they have to be extremely careful. If they strike well, it will also be safe passage for himself and the Maulana – the martyrdom can wait, another 9/11 can wait. Regarding Nawaz Khan, who the Maulana had highly recommended, he was ambivalent – that was Maulana’s decision.

“...need to meet up with Maulana, when the right opportunity comes up”, Nawaz khan was saying.

Ahmed Akbari gave the details necessary for planning to Nawaz and they broke up, with the food lightly touched.

Dec 5^th, 11.45PM:

Tariq was in the shadows, he had been waiting patiently in the balcony in front of the hotel where the meeting had taken place some 2hrs ago. He had expertly opened the shop with a key and with a snack watched to see if the people from the meeting will return. After an hour, he went in as a dilapidated old man, who has saved some money from days alms and was going to get food at the end of it. When he left the restaurant, he had the wire he had set-up earlier in the day, in the hollow of the wooden table leg. He would deliver it to Vel and the Major; and they could look for nuances in the conversation – he had would hear them a few times before he made the delivery.

He took his phone and punched the regular number. It was familiar voice at the other end. Tariq simply said. “The wire will be in the drop box 4 by 2AM tonight” and disconnected.

Dec 29^th 11.20PM:

The Major was quite tense and was pacing the floor; in the last few weeks, his smoking had increased and he believed he had smoked away 3 months of cigarettes in the last week, since the plan had gained speed. It seemed to have a lot of momentum now, that he can do nothing to stop it. He also had to be imaginative to create and build a scenario; since it was highly secret operation with not more than 2 other people in know (“that too not completely”), he personally had to pore through record with a fine comb to ensure there are no holes – there cannot be even an iota of doubt in anyone’s mind. He had to pull all his strings possible to get the bait set-up. He probably had used up all his quid-pro-quos of his lifetime.

He paused his pacing and returned to his desk and looked at the computer screen – in his Level-Z secure account, he stared at the draft press-release he had started writing that he’d use when the operation ended. Uday prided himself on his uncanny ability to predict outcome of an operation earlier in the inception – has been one reason that his ops ended up as successes more often than not. Here too, he had predicted this op to end in a certain way. He read through it and smiled and placed a bet on his prediction… Amidst all the tension, he grinned – he’d love to see how Tariq and Vel would react to the draft, if they read it!

That thought petered out to give way to anxiety of wait – As he lighted up another smoke he thought wryly, the smoke could kill him or this operation could kill him! Either way, he was fine! Since the time his dear wife Moushumi and Shylu were lost in senseless violence in Kashmir, he had no personal life. It suited his bureaucratic and political bosses well – he was dedicated to the cause and he had not the one looking for moving up – all he seemed to want was to ensure that his people received fair treatment and he did his best that no else loses their Moushumi and Shylu. He looked at the phone one more time willing it to ring! He ran through the checklist in his mind again. He was not sure if he should put something in writing ahead of time… As he glanced at the phone one more time, it rang – seemed eerily loud with the pall of smoke around. He picked up the phone. It was Tariq.

Major just said tersely, “All set, everything is a go”

Jan 9^th 21.45Hrs:

This time, Nawaz Khan was waiting in the booth at the same restaurant for Ahmed Akbari. They were like anyone else - appeared to have walked into dinner after a night at the movies. They had decided that this was the last time they would meet. Ahmed walked in, with a paper and they greeted each other. The tension was palpable and neither of them wanted to prolong the meeting more than it needed to be.

“Everything has been set-up Ahmed-bhai – the date is 13^th, two days from now”. Ahmed assumed the bhai was a practice from Nawaz’s upbringing in Gujarat. “We will be out of the country and with the prized possession”.

Nawaz quickly ran Ahmed with the necessary information. The tickets have been bought – they would be in the Business class of the flight for easy access; and they would board at Bhopal.

Ahmed confirmed for the last time… “..so, both of us will board the plane at Bhopal ? I will bring Maulana and will not be talking to you until we are in charge of the flight. Your pilot has been set-up?”

Nawaz Khan nodded quietly in affirmative.

Both of them arose, and in a silent mutual respect, shook hands and embraced each other thrice and left.

Jan 9^th, 02.05AM:

Tariq woke up with a start. He had waited in the shadows, on the balcony, as he had done a few days ago. The tiredness and lack of sleep should have gotten to him - inspite of the incessant buzz of the famous Bangalore mosquitos, he had dozed off. He glanced at his watch in his pocket - it was close to 2AM. He was sure Vel would be waiting, a bit concerned on the lateness. Vigilant, he hurried to the back of the restaurant, went through the worker’s quarters, to the booth, picked the wire from the hollow of the table leg and returned it to the drop box.

On reaching the drop area, he called up Vel, “It is in the drop box 8 tonight”, he knew Vel would be out on his bike to pick it up in about 15m from now – he wanted to stay back at the box and see his friend and talk to him about the plan one more time. He heard Vel say, “Good Luck, my friend and take care”. Tariq, quickly closed the flip-top on his cell and left.

Jan 12^th, Around 8.30 PM

Nawaz Khan was at his desk, he was at his last part of the plan. He was giving final touches to the pen. It would neatly go into his pocket, when he walks through the security. It would beep along with his belt and when the security man pats him down, he would take out his wallet and pen and leave it on the table. To the bored security, under cursory examination, it would be just a pen. It was one of those, that when clicked would push the nib out – and another hidden click, it actually pushed out the needle with the clicker becoming the plunger – it had the thing that would immobilize the victim… After a few minutes, he was done – Nawaz Khan looked at his work, he had no doubt it would pass – he had the best material to work with.

Chapter 4: The Event

Maj. Chatterjee was restless, with nervous energy – it seemed to be the norm since this op had started; his characteristic cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth. He was nicely very economical with truth and he knew that if things were to go south, there would be major inquisition. He knew that there was a very fine line between success and failure – between patriotism and a scoundrel; if it fails that would be the end of the career and perhaps even a court-martial. But then, looking at the whole with checks and balances, he still believed it was surplus for the country. So, he had shut that out from his mind and pursued his part of the assignment with a single minded laser focus – or else he would have failed Tariq and Vel. In front of him, he saw the itinerary of the home minister – the home minister in the coalition and the bait – Mr. Marichamy was going to Chennai en-route a brief stop-over in Bhopal with the security attaché that Maj. Chatterjee had assigned to him. “I’m fortunate to have two of the top field-operatives on it”, he thought. Although Vel seemed not comfortable to be in the limelight or the first option, he believed that Vel was almost as good as Tariq is. He stared at the ticker on the screen that he had his assistant stream to him on his monitor – it was about airline departure. He glanced at his watch, it was close to 10.45AM, and he noticed that the New Delhi ATC has given a go ahead to the plane for push-back and taxi, after a brief delay…

Jan 13^th, Around 10.15 AM

At the departure hall at Delhi, Vel had his internal strife in check. He had two assignments in parallel – help protect the minister from harm and at the same time ensure the plan is a resounding success – it would halt terrorism dead on its track and give peace an opportunity to succeed. The previous night, as he was channel surfing to get rid of his tension, something caught his eye on TV – he had looked at the TV program with interest that gave way to morbid fascination to dilemma. He had immediately gone on the net and searched for the details; rushed to the TIW archives and looked it up. His hunch was right – he had fleetingly, wrestled going to Maj. Chatterjee… Finally, he had come to that decision – He would give that possibility of ever-lasting peace a chance.

Vel was waiting in the VIP lounge of the departure hall for the minister to finish his durbar. The final announcement for boarding had been done. An airline official came to the minister and fawned on him – “Sir, all the passengers have boarded, we would be ready when you are”. The minister talking to the chamchas ignored the airline official and continued talking to his crowd – Vel had half a mind to get rid of the chamchas and drag the minister to the plane.

Finally, the minister turned to Vel and said, “ennayya, polama”? Vel who knew Tamil very well, started walking, in assent – On his ride to the plane, the minister was saying that he was going to his home town to celebrate pongal in his home-state. Vel nodded, he wanted to speak very little to the minister.

Elsewhere, Tariq was waiting comfortably – everything was going on plan and he had inserted himself into the situation and had ensured he has gotten lost in the crowd – he had disguised himself sufficiently enough that he can pass close scrutiny for a while. He looked around, there officials milling around and there was a delay in departure. Although, it was annoying, it didn’t make him desperate or edgy. He knew this would play out to the end. He had spent hours listening to the nuances in the taped conversations and other intel. The terrorists would show up on the plane. The bait was too strong for them to pass up. Like Vel and the Major), he knew this was one good chance for cleansing and to end the strife. He just needed to wait for the opportune moment to strike.

As they boarded the flight, the captain had come out from his cockpit and fawned on the minister for a while. Vel immediately knew he was the kind of person who would sell his mother to make a few bucks. Vel took his seat next to the minister on the aisle. Finally, the plane departed about 30 minutes late thanks to the minister’s aimless talk to his chamchas. Vel did not notice the stylish young man with a goatee beard about three rows behind him.

For his part, Nawaz Khan seemed immersed in working on his laptop. Nawaz sitting in the 3^rd row of the almost empty business class saw the minister climb in with his attaché, his mouth tightened a bit into a grimace. He quickly looked into his laptop and continued on his work. He had also noticed the captain, with a couple of blanket-packs in his hand come out from the corner of the eye and talking to the minister. The captain walked up to the end of the section and made small talk to the only other passenger in that section; and then to Nawaz. As he turned around, he dropped the pillow-blanket pack at Nawaz’ feet, nodded perceptibly. The signal has been given.

The plane made a landing at Bhopal – it was quite uneventful. There were passengers deplaning, including the other one in the business class and new passengers boarding. There were two new passengers in the business class; Nawaz glanced at Ahmed briefly without any trace of recognition and looked at the person accompanying him – his heart soared – he had seen the maulana – very few have!

Now to the next step – he had a practical problem – he needed to get to the minister going past the security attaché. He had seen the minister take a few drinks, right from Delhi; and he waited for his opportunity – he knew the minister would need to go to the toilet. And it happened in about 30 minutes and as soon as the seat belt signs were off. As the minister got out of the toilet, with amazing speed, Nawaz got out of his seat and in few paces had minister in a lock with the needle on the throat. He quietly told the attaché to be seated and try no heroics or the minister’s throat would sport a puncture.

Tariq’s heart soared. He had all the ducks lined up in a row. Their plan was going to be a success. His plan is going to be a success too. The terrorist were contained in the front and he knew he could take them. He had seen Vel and that assured him… like earlier, just need to await that opportune moment and he could sense it around the corner.

Nawaz Khan saw Ahmed and the Maulana get up from their seats. On the way to the front the Maulana tightened the attaché’s belt and asked him softly to get his hands behind his head and warned of no heroics. They knew the “Hijack code” was on the door to the cockpit; and told the head stewardess to knock at the door.

Inside the pilot cabin, Basheer and his co-pilots heard the knock differently; they knew there was trouble. They decided to open the safe and take out the automatic and make a reconnaissance of the situation to see if the automatic could be used since they were not quite certain if any other arms have been smuggled in and how many of the hijackers were in the plane. Basheer took automatic gun, tucked it in his waist behind his back, slipped on his coat and stepped out. As soon as he cleared the toilets, he went black.

Nawaz waited for the pilot to show; he had the minister cringe on the floor, near the door with the sharp edge of the knife on his throat. As the pilot crossed the toilet, Nawaz hit him with such a force that he fell as if he was pole-axed. Quickly, Nawaz took the gun away from the captain. By this time, Ahmed had expertly patted down the attaché and found a gun in the holster and relieved him of it; then found the knife tucked it in his shoes. He threw the knife to Nawaz, who put his pen away and had the knife in the other hand. Ahmed, now commanded the aircraft to Amritsar; and at the same time asked the co-pilot to get in touch with the ATC for a negotiator to state his litany of demands. Then Ahmed went to the economy section of the aircraft, waved his gun and herded the passengers to the aft of the aircraft.

As the plane landed in Amritsar, Nawaz and Ahmed saw lot of activity and some trucks which they had no doubt were military and police. They knew that the game has to be played and played out – they had decided to pilot the plane beyond Kabul and onto one of the new Islamic republics and had asked for fuel; and that had set the negotiations going.

After several hours of negotiations, with the assent from Maulana, they had agreed to free all the passengers, except for a few men and the minisiter for exchange of fuel. The remaining few passengers were bundled into the last few seats, the rear door firmly locked. The last act was to send the Security attaché to the rear to join rest of the passengers, before the plane was ready to take off.

Tariq looked around at the passengers left behind. He did not see any heroes there. But we never know, he thought to himself. Like the Flight-93 on that fated September 11^th, desperate situations are likely to throw up unlikely heroes. He needed to keep an eye on them to ensure there aren’t any disruptions. He had seen Vel in the rear and Vel knew that he was around and would wait for the signal.

As the aircraft was preparing to move, Vel was at the rear with rest of the passengers, waiting for the signal – a signal from Tariq. Then he heard three shots, two quick shots and one a few seconds later, ring out from the front. A thought flashed across, “Things have gone horribly wrong…”. Mortified, Vel sprinted to the business class section of the plane and he found Maulana and Ahmed Akbari dead, Maulana with the knife expertly thrown into his heart and Ahmed shot; Basheer was also shot – Vel didn’t bother much about him, but looked for the home minister; Marichamy was very much alive, but dying with a bullet shot below his the throat, severing the windpipe – it was macabre to see the gurgling blood and his life ebb out – perhaps he had his whole life replay in front of him. Seeing Vel enter, Nawaz Khan straightened up over Ahmed Akbari, who seemed to have shot Marichamy; as he turned to face Vel, Nawaz Khan’s gun was pointing at Vel, fingers on the trigger, the safety off and …

Chapter 5: End Game, Cleaning up…

As Nawaz Khan’s eyes bore through Vel…

Flashback to Jan 12^th, 10.35PM, night before the hijack

Vel was all tensed up – tomorrow was the big day. He tried to get rid of some of the tension through channel surfing – he had gone for a 10k run in the evening and that hadn’t helped much. He wished he was running with his friend Tariq now, as was their wont. As he was flipping channels, he caught a news item on the Home minister Marichamy. The news anchor was covering the meteoric rise of Marichamy from being a councilor in Coimbatore locality and slowly to the MLA and then to the minister in the regional party. Later on, in the coalition, with a bit of arm twisting to the level of home minister. Then something clicked in Vel’s head – Vel jumped onto his computer and searched on Marichamy’s life; then a short ride to TIW archives for further confirmation. He found how Marichamy was a small town crook, then rose to a status of local henchman and how he shot to prominence by rioting and arson; that was the short-step to a councilor and then onto state and national politics. That one thing caught Vel’s eye was Marichamy’s alleged role in the 1993 riots. The gang led by him had allegedly set fire to several shops, including a poor tailor’s shop; It was rumoured that Marichamy himself had personally lit fire to shops on that part of the street – It was never proven, since no one, including the tailor had come forward to speak up against him – there was a photo of the ailing tailor in the hospital, with his young son looking squarely into the camera, with piercing eyes.

Back onboard the Plane

As Vel entered the business class, Nawaz pivoted around smiling and lowering his gun – “Hello Vel, we have some collateral damage. Ahmed got to him...”. Vel recognized that cold mirth in his friend’s eyes; at that instant, he knew that his friend Tariq had achieved what he had set out at – revenge and eliminating evil. In Vel’s mind, there was very little doubt, that Tariq had shot Ahmed first and killed Maulana with the knife that was taken away from him. Using Ahmed’s gun, he had shot Marichamy and Basheer and fixed up the gun on dead Ahmed’s hand.

He went over to Tariq and looked at him. He knew that Tariq recognized that he knew. There was an unsaid Thank you in Tariq’s eyes.

Epilogue

Four days later, after all the hoopla had died down a bit, Major Chatterjee was in a room; for the past two days he had been questioned several times by his superiors. He had shielded both Tariq and Vel as much as possible, on the pretext that both were undercover and needed time to recoup. Now, it was a meeting with the Home secreatary and with the Security Advisor to the PM.

He was asked again and he again faithfully stuck the story - he glanced at the paper in front of him - it was a meesage that he had sent out to the command on hearing from Vel about the "collateral damage". His eyes caught parts of the message - “… and the honorable home minister was killed in the cross-fire between the TIW operatives and the terrorist on-board”.

The Major heard the Advisor asking, "...stick by your message and are you sure that is what really happened ?".

Major replied, "Yes Sir !".

Afterall that was the message he had prepared around a month ago. He smiled to himself and once again, he won his little bet with himself – he had the analysis spot-on and predicted the outcome accurately. Only this time, he did nothing to stop the course of the events.

Truly Funny Poem...

Got this from someone. This was truly truly funny. Thus far, this blog was about what I write and publish what I (call) create ! :) But then, this was really, really, genuinely funny that I cannot pass up; I'll file this under "Opinion"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not sure of the origin of this- it says 'Colonial poetry of the Raj', but whether genuinely written by Rangaswamy or spoofed by someone else, it definitely is super.

Deep in jungle I am went
On shooting Tiger I am bent
Bugger Tiger has eaten wife
No doubt I avenge poor darling's life

Too much quiet, snakes and leeches
But am not feared these sons of beeches
Hearing loud noise I am jump with start
But noise is coming from damn fool heart

Taking care not to be fright
I am clutching rifle with eye to sight
Should Tiger come I will fall him down
Then like hero return to native town

Then through trees I am espying one cave
I am telling self - 'Rangaswamy be brave'
I now proceed with too much care
From nonsense smell this Tiger's lair

My leg is shake, I start to pray
I think I shoot Tiger some other day
Turning round I am going to go
But Tiger giving bloody roar

He bounding from cave like shooting star
I commend my soul to Kali Ma
Through the jungle I am went
Like bullet w ith Tiger hot on scent

Mighty Tiger rave and rant
Rangaswamy shit in pant!
Must to therefore leave the jungle
Killing Tiger one big bungle!!

I am telling that never in life
I will risk again for damn fool wife

The Wonder Years !

...
...

• And I believed that throwing the ball against the wall and angling the bat on its return is a square cut that Vishy plays
• And I believed the green, white and saffron in our flag is for fertility, peace and heritage
• And I believed having an hair-style like Chandra (as seen in photos) makes me the best leggie in the world
• And I believed that Zeenie was going to "bahar banke aaoo" in my duniya, with that look and the pout
• And I believed that people voted for a cause and not for a caste
• And I believed giving up coffee for a week would have made my dad not miss the train in a wayside station
• And I believed I'll be in "good" politics by 40
• And I believed smoking is the in-thing (until I tried running for more than a minute)
• And I believed that I can pass on those wonder years to my progeny...
• And I wonder why Pink Floyd sang "Did you ever wonder Why we had to run for shelter when the promise of a brave new world Unfurled beneath a clear blue sky...."
  

...
...

Shine On You, Crazy Diamond !!!

After a long long time, got an opportunity to connect back with one of the passions of my earlier life… Pink Floyd. Was surfing channels on a Sunday and found a program on Syd Barrett, one of the founder members of Pink Floyd. He was the one with immense potential, talent and ability, that was completely wasted. Perfect example of Bharatiyar’s “Nalladhor Veenai Seidhae... ்”; Anyways, personally, I could not and did not, dig much of the music that he made, except for the quirky sound of Arnold Layne – even that to did not measure up to the early-mid Pink Floyd; with the trade-mark blues sound, lyrics couched in powerful poetry (as in echoes) and the haunting sounds of the “wailing” guitar later (like that of in Comfortably Numb)… However, seeing the program and see how in awe Roger, Nick, Ric and Dave talked about Syd, I believe there has to be something about Syd that was genius. Perhaps, it is in our nature to magnify the aura of an unfulfilled potential and make that much bigger than it actually is. Particularly if it has an early demise; in this case it was a figurative demise (from music), as Syd moved to seclusion and away from the sounds and lived his life in solitaire (and with his mother).

Funny enough, it is perhaps much chronicled and much repeated story about the connection between SOYCD and Syd Barrett. That’s true. However, in the interview, both Ric and Roger talk about their own complete breakdown when they see Syd at the recording and Dave talks about “Wish you were here” as the other connection to Syd – WYWH is another of enduring PF classics – an example of perfect poem set to great music… Here it is reproduced, with all copyright attributions :-)

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change? And did you exchange
a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl,
year after year,
running over the same old ground. What have we found?
The same old fears,
wish you were here.

Fade to Black

Seeing the light around
the bud with a newfound
optimism, looked to the sun,
to bloom into colours.
Little did the young realize,
It was dusk and not dawn,
The sun had been long gone
in a fleeting transience.
No sun nor warmth lay ahead,
As this twilight would lead
to an unforgiving night instead.
A night silent, cold and stony
For the utopian to wilt and die.
Among the ideal innocents,
Yet another Chrysalis,
and no butterfly !

Ides of March...

Writer's block revisits and although I've a few things to write about (I think), not putting the fingers to the keyboard. But didn't want March to go un-blogged. So, posting a photograph that I took sometime ago and in-appropriately naming the post as "Ides of March"...

Sports Greatest Upsets - My take...

Watching a game recently and talking to a friend of mine, we went back and forth on some of the greatest sporting upsets of all times... This pushed me to write some of them, that I've experienced in my life time... Here they are in, in my order:

At #5, Kimi Raikonnen winning the F1-2007 Championship

This was so bizarre, I'm sure if Oliver Stone was a F1 enthusiast, he would have definitely done a movie on this - in the lines of JFK... a 3 hour marathon with a lot of twist and turns along the way, with equally intense players - an upstart Englishman, a petulant Spaniard, an enigmatic Finn, who seemed to be content as a crown prince, but never the king and the fast-speaking, fast-driving-on-a-straight-line-but-non-on-corners Brazilian.

It came down to the last race of the season. Three men battling for the title. Kimi had numerically a chance of winning, but perhaps the least probability. The other two contenders, Alonso, needed Lewis (the most favoured) to complete no earlier than the 8th finisher, and with Kimi not in first position and he finishing 3rd... or something like that.

Given all that, in the final race, Lewis made all the rookie mistakes that he didn't seem to make the whole season; everything fell apart in the final two. He seemed to be beset by anxiety, made wrong decisions, had car problems and faded away out of the title contention - his season seemed to mirror the penultimate race episode - his car stalling at the entrance to the pit-stops and could not get out of the gravel!!!

But it was still not over between the Alonso and Kimi. Alonso was at third place and with Kimi at second behind Massa, the world title was Alonso’s to win. But we know, unlike Mclaren drivers, Ferrari drivers tend to listen to the team orders ! After Ferrari’s last pit stop, that’s exactly seem to happen. Exiting the pits, Kimi went past his teammate Felipe Massa to the disappointment of the Brazilian crowd and perhaps Massa himself.

We had a new Formula 1 Champion in the most extraordinarily freakish alignment of events.

At #4 India defeats WI - WC 83

All the facts on the table - on one side: West Indies undefeated champions of the world. Have pummeled one and all who stood in their way. If they were unbeatable in tests, they were invincible in what was then, the new format of the game - the ODs. Led by a shrewd captain, who commanded respect, with 4 fearsome fast bowlers, who could either take your wicket or head off; with one of the most destructive batman of the modern era on their side, most successful openers at that time and reasonably good middle-order. Possibly, the greatest team to have played cricket in the modern-era.

On the other side, a team captained by a young man - whose strategy for winning any match would be 'kupple of wickets before lunch, kupple of wickets before tea and kupple of wickets after tea and the boys will have the game in the bag'. I wonder how it translated into the ODs. Anyhow, a Team full of trundlers whose bowling speed was slower than speed of the West Indian bowlers run-up.

The result India won by 43 runs - the greatest upset in a WC final. So aggrieved was Clive Lloyd not to have won 3 in a row, when they toured India immediately after the WC, they whupped us 5-0 in the ODs and 3-0 in the tests.

At #3, James Buster Douglas knock-out of Mike Tyson

When Mike Tyson was at his peak (monikered as Iron Mike), he was unbeatable. Not only did he win his fights with ease, he won it with a definite brutality and quickness. He had knack of knock-outs in the first round, with his awesome power - the opponents seemed scared coming into the fight. I recall seeing a bout in televised in India on a Sunday, when all of were all prepared to watch the fight, and it got over in 90s in the first round - was that Spinks ?

On the other corner was James Buster Douglas - who at 30 was fighting a much younger, meaner and most feared opponent in Mike Tyson. Somewhere during all his knock-outs, Tyson had morphed into one-punch-knock-out boxer, rather than using his defensive skills to get closer to the opponent. Through out the fight, Douglas had an upper hand, landing jabs and closing one of Tyson's eyes. The uppercut from Tyson almost ended the fight in the 8th round, but Douglas got up ("a slow 10 count", Tyson's camp alleged) and knocked the heavily favoured (42-1 odds) champ out in the 10th round.

Douglas had pulled off one of the greatest upset in the boxing history.

At #2, we have the Superbowl XLII (that is 42, for Romanically Challenged)

This game was the trigger for me to write this blog. New England patriots were pretty much the champion side throughout the season pumelling most team during the early part of the season and bringing in a perfect 18-0 season the Superbowl. New York Giants on the other side, had all their issues - hold-out, a two-game slide early in the season, a "will live in the shadow of star brother QB and tenative" QB, coach who was second guessed, a wild-card entry into the play-offs, but gathering momentum as they went through the play-offs.

The superbowl was a defensive fight. Going the last quarter, NE was leading 7-3; although for the first time their offense seemed to be on shaky grounds, harried by the quick NY defense all the time - I bet Brady was on the ground the most during this game that would perhaps match the sum total for the season. In the last quarter, the NY drew the first blood, marching down to the field for a TD; and Brady answered back very quickly, putting Patriots up, 14-10. With just over 2 minutes to go, the game seemed to be over.

Then came the stunner. Eli Manning seemed to zone out, take control and moved the ball. But the defining moment came in what some folks call as "The Catch-2". Manning in desperate need to get to first down, hassled by the defense who get to him, eludes 3 of them and throws down; Tyree jumps up, catches the pass and pins it down between his hand and his helmet, brought down in an arch by Harrison, by some magic holds on to the ball. 1st down. And Giants eventually get a TD with 30-something second to go. 17-14 Giants upset the universally anointed favourites - Patriots and their perfection.

At #1, I have the India bt Aus - Calcutta 2001

Yet another cricket. Australia had won 16 tests in a row. It was very clear from the happenings that they were clearly rolling over the opponents ruthlessly, under their unforgiving captain, Steve Waugh. They had just comprehensively beaten India in the previous test match at Mumbai, the first of the 3-test series.

Half of the second test followed the same pattern. Australia bats first, puts up a ~450 score, India folds for 170 odd. Waugh going for the kill, asks India to followon - there was nothing to suggest its going to be different, as India lose 3 at 115 and floundering at 4 for 230, with Laxman like in the first Innings playing the lone warrior. Then came the astounding and amazing innings and partnership - one whole day of play, with Laxman scoring 164* and Dravid 148*; Laxman's innings was one for the lore (it did find a place in the top 10 innings ever played in cricket - iirc, it was at #6 and best innings to be every played by an Indian) - faultless, strokeful, great timing and amazingly amazing. When he got out at 281 and after Ganguly waffled for a while, he declared and India won the match by 171 runs. And the series.

One of the great upsets authored by one of the most artistic batsman in the world cricket. Some would say this is not an upset per se, but to me the fact that we came back so far from behind, playing such an unforgettable innings and partnership, makes it one of the greatest upsets to watch. To understand it, one should understand the collective despair of the cricket fans, when we were 4/230.

Finally... ... the greatest upset of all times; never ever seen before in the history by most of anyone - is how upset my son gets when something does not go his way ! :)

A bit of grace...

All we are looking for is a bit of grace.

The story is the same: BCCI flexed its newly toned and pumped up on-steroids-financial muscle, CA made the usual noises about how it is in their DNA to play hard right from the days of the backyard and play fair (not the color, stupid) and the men and women across hemispheres took side depending on the color (the color of the flag - yet again, don't want another "thats vilification mate"),

In all these, what are the bets that we would ever see:

• the Aussie cricketers give up almost-laughable, but feigned and aggrieved posturing, and do accept that they did screw-up quite a bit in the Sydney test; and for all the victimized look Mr.Symonds carry, he is as culpable as the accused is, if not more
• the Indians in spite of all the bravado of Sreesanth or Harbhajan accept that they are still not as good as the Aussies; and those few Indians who are as good as Aussies, don't carry that silly bravado
• the Cricket Australia stop believing in its own stories, but start hearing voices of reality
• the BCCI have the gonads to ban Harbhajan for a match in spite of ICC's let-off due to rip-roaring-comedic "human" errors. BCCI does have access to those earlier offenses ! If you take refuge in the culture, why not show some ?
  
• Finally the BCCI to have some grace and back-off; they are coming across as the gold-decked, wealth-flaunting, uneducated goonda of the 'pettai'.

On the contrary, a bet on Shoaib Aktar become a team-man may be more sensible.

Big Change !!

Momentary lapse of reason, as Pink Floyd would say.

Yes, it has got to be that. Or else, knowing how I feel now, why would I have said yes 5-6 months ago? It was an opportunity that presented itself and we took it – we here is the collective family decision. I still believe we based our decision on right priorities for the family rather than me or my own career. It is just icing on the cake that I will also be working on something different and challenging and definitely something that I can spectacularly screw up and fail miserably.

We are the cusp of change. In about 4 hours we would have left our house of 2+ years, city of several years and importantly comfort zone of a lifetime. Everything in this zone was fine and good; but we needed to get the next inflection for our topmost priority. So we are taking a chance. We will be in a new city, new country and new culture in about two days time.

Its not that we have not done this before; a couple of times and at the end of it, we were back at our comfort zone. The previous sojourns always seemed easier – just packed our bags, locked our doors and left. This time, it is elaborate – not sure why – I think with age and time, comes cob-webs that anchors firmly to the ground. It seems that there are million things that needed to be taken care of before we leave. It is also a function of our own experience and our own assessment of risking something, I guess. On the other side of the (global) village, I’m not sure what lies ahead – would our decision get vindicated? Would there be that exponential improvement that we are banking on and are expecting? Would my work, the primary vehicle for what we want to do, be that bit more challenging than what I can handle? Don’t know – the air of uncertain future is apprehensive; and the thought that we are moving from a nice and cozy comfort makes it a bit tougher and raises the apprehension higher.

In any case, the deed is done and we are committed. With a transcontinental hop across the big pond and hope, we are taking that leap of faith. I believe that umbilical chord to that faith would not snap.

Perhaps its Grateful Dead that I should be quoting – “We will get by, we will survive”…

Penny for my thoughts? Thank you – please make it a small change!!

The Love story

There is nothing much to write about me. I was the normal IT person (or the abnormal or sub-normal, if you ask the other 50% of the people in Bangalore), have been doing the normal IT thing for the past decade and now, am in normal cross-roads, with a host of others crowding the space and looking for signposts. So I had taken up to writing, conjuring up a few, peddling those as stories and such. Given my new hobby, I also started reading up various magazines – predominantly the tamil ones (like Vikatan), which in anyways seems to have more movie stuff covered and starlets uncovered than real stories; but they do carry a story every week, and sometimes real good ones – including the one, I wrote, if I may add, modestly!!

One such story had peaked my interest laterally – buried in one corner of it was an analogy of Mukilan-Nila; I’ve never heard of that one before – heard of Ambikapathy-Amaravathy several times over in Tamil literature, even Laila-Majnu, but Mukilan-Nila ? Not even once. I had googled for it, and came up with nothing. Then called up the Vikatan’s office, introduced myself and got the coordinates of the author. Long story short, I was pointed to a small town in Tamil Nadu near Tirunelveli; he also said that there was very little literature around it, would send whatever he had to me; but averred for its authenticity. The intrigue around this was very tempting; I had decided to give it a shot and pursue the veracity – hopeful that it would give me a story to write and to veer off my normal cross-roads !

So here I am sitting in a passenger train between Madurai to Tenkasi, aiming to go to Tenkasi where Nila’s family were purported to have lived thereabouts. The train, in all its rustic ambience and bullock-cart speed was crawling – stopping at every station; and it wasn’t crowded either. I took out the sheaf of papers that the author had sent and looked through it once more to find any nuances – It was around the Indian independence time – Mukilan and Nila had fallen in love and it was one of unrequited due to family differences; the circumstances over their separation and demise. As I was poring through it, I didn’t notice a Geriatric (of course, of uncertain age) old man who had moved into the seat in front. He should have boarded the train at the last stop.

He stuck up a conversation; “Thambi, enna padichittu irrukeenga ?”. His dialect was strange, but I told him what I was reading...

“Aaah. That story! That was a long time ago, thambi”. I sensed my pulse quicken.

I asked him, “Periyavare, Do you know something about it?” He nodded and I looked at him and he launched into the story.

***

Mukilan’s and Nila’s family were close and next door in a village near Virudhunagar. Mukilan was a few months older than Nila. As they grew up together, they had fabulous time together playing around in the fields, in and around the pond and the orchards. Fate intervened; when they were 8, some differences cropped up between the families around land and use of water. It escalated from verbal, then fisticuffs and ended up in bloodshed of Nila’s uncle and jail term for Mukilan’s cousin. To avoid further bloodshed, Nila’s family moved out.

Time fades the past in the young. Mukilan had gone on to a college to do his Intermediate in Tenkasi and had seen a quiet girl and fallen for her. He did not have the courage to go up to and talk to her, since she was in a different group. However, things turned on its head in the end of the first year – Mukilan had topped his class in the first year and as is wont in that college, all the top students in various groups were to be felicitated in a function. He saw that quiet girl in the same group. When Mukilan’s name was called out he did not notice, the girl had jerked her head up and look at him intently. When the girl name was called out, she was looking directly at Mukilan and it was Mukilan’s turn to be surprised. It was Nila; soon after the function, they met and talked about the past and the present – came to know the families had still sworn vendetta. Through that year, their proximity grew and their fear grew. Particularly, Nila’s cousin, who had lost his father, was still intent on revenge when Mukilan’s cousin gets out of the jail in a few years from then. At the same time they were doing extremely well in the college and the principal had secretly wagered a bet that both of them would top their group in the state exams and they would go on to do greater things.

The time rolled on to the year, both managed to keep their love off public; principal had won half of his wager. Nila had topped her group and Mukilan had come second. Mukilan and Nila went to colleges in Tirunelveli, Mukilan aiming to go for civil services and Nila for her science. It was towards the end of the 3^rd year that trouble reared her head. When Nila had gone home at Rajapalayam, her mother had announced that they have found a potential groom for her, who was working in Madras. Nila was mortified, but she did not have guts to talk to her parents – since the hatred still ran deep and her cousin was just out from jail. Mukilan and Nila had decided to elope to Madras and get married. Mukilan would go to Virudhunagar for the last time, take leave of his parents and would meet Nila at the Rajapalayam railway station and take the bus to Madurai on the day their exams ended.

Little did they know their story had leaked out and reached the ears of Nila’s parents, on that fateful day.

***

The old man had paused; as the darkness fell and the train was slowing down. The old man seemed rushed. He quickly said he needed to take leave as his destination had come and rushed out, when the train had stopped at Sivakasi. I was desperate – I didn’t know if I should follow him or not. It was night and there wasn’t much light and my indecision was taken care by the train, as it started. I sat back, marveled at the story the old man had just spun… At the same time I felt a need to know what had actually happened to Mukilan and Nila. I sat through rest of the journey up to Rajapalayam thinking about various combinations and permutations. It felt very strange to have known so much and not known the whole thing – it was like reading a thriller, only finding out that the last few chapters have been ripped out.

With heightened sense of curiosity and a disappointment, I got down at Rajapalayam and found my colleague’s brother waiting for me to take me to his house. I had told him the fascinating story that I had heard from the old man. He responded that he had heard about the story himself from various people with various versions, each changing based on the Goran who tells it. He said he would check around tomorrow with some to know if they can add more light to it. After dinner, I could hardly sleep and when I slept the old man was in the dreams reliving the story again.

Here I am, two days later, waiting in the Sivakasi station. It had been the most frustrating time for me. It was like chasing a mirage and false leads. Aided by my host, I had gone and met several people. Everyone had heard about it in vague terms, but nothing concrete. A lead to the descendent of Nila’s family turned out to be completely false and we got thrown out – fortunate not to have been inflicted bodily harm, since the Nila in question there was a young girl, who was just about to get married in two days time!

The whole experience was maddeningly futile; added to the misery was constant rain and power-cut. I later decided to abandon the project and take the train to Tirunelveli and go meet a relative of mine there and return to Bangalore. My host dropped me in the station. At the station, I found the train (the one I traveled into Rajapalayam) was 2 hours late, now arriving around 11PM at night. I had nothing to do – the station was deserted and I did not want to go back in pouring rain. I cursed the whole experience and sat down under a dim light with a book I had brought in – there were couple of homeless people scattered out in the station, finding their own warm and dry nooks. The book was good enough for me to not to feel the pangs of hunger immediately! It was around half-past ten, I decided to eat. As I took out my packed dinner, I found one such old person looking at it. I held out a packet of rice out to her; The old lady ambled closer to me and let the packet lie on the bench and took the other corner of the bench.

Something told me that she isn’t a common beggar for alms – I stuck up the conversation with her. She talked about the rain this season, which is something she hasn’t seen for a long time. On a hunch, I asked her if she had heard about Mukilan-Nila’s story. What the heck? Last ditch attempt is not going to hurt.

“Oh yes, those two – poor ones, thambi”… she started. She covered the same background of their early days, the days of enmity and meeting again at the college and how Nila liked the quiet and modest demeanor of Mukilan. And how she fell in love all over again for his kindness and how they were perfect for each other. And how they had decided to elope! My senses quickened, as I listened intently…

***

Prior to that day, Nila had diligently collected a few of her essentials elsewhere. The plan was she would go out on the pretext of meeting a friend, and join Mukilan onboard the train at the Rajapalayam station. She left around 11 AM for the late evening train.

Unknown to her, the news of their impending elopement had reached their parents. Nila’s cousin who had sworn revenge on Mukilan’s family found this to be an opportunity to get even. He and his friends set-out to intercept Mukilan midway, where as Nila’s father and his friends set-out in search of Nila – unable to locate her, they settled to wait in the station.

The revenge-party had boarded the train just ahead of Virudhunagar in one of the small stations and found Mukilan. Mukilan had no chance – it was brutal and it was quick. He was hacked and his body was thrown out of the train at Sivakasi. The story has it that they killers traveled in the same train until Rajapalayam and got down from the train with the blood-soaked sickles.

Nila who had just entered the station had seen her parent and knew things have gone awry. However, as soon as she saw her cousin and his friends getting down the train with red plastered on their shirts, she knew the worst has happened. She fainted and she was carried away and no one had since heard of her.

***

The old woman monologue was broken by the train which had just steamed in. I knew there was something here – I didn’t want to miss the ending and also didn’t want to miss the train. As I hauled my back-pack, I asked her what had happened to Nila later on…

As I was getting into the train, she looked at me and said, “Thambi, the legend has it that even today, Mukilan still travels on this train from Virudhunagar to get to Nila and Nila patiently waits for him at the station”…

As the visage of the old-man in the train emerged from my subconscious, I dropped the rucksack down and turned around quickly to look at her; she was already gone, an ambling silhouette framed against a distant lightning streak. A mere apparition in the darkness!

Apparition??? Realization hit me like that distant thunder!!!

Act of Kindness

Interesting experience.

We stopped by a petrol bunk in the intersection of Ringroad (in Bangalore between Old Madras Road and Hebbal Road) and the road leading to the Sultanpalya. The gas station is in the southern corner of that intersection. As we stopped for filling up, I saw a A5 size photograph of "Manjunath" stuck on the glass enclosure with the bold "Employee of the Month". As usual the photo didn't match the actual individual and I asked the attendant who was filling up my car, pointing to another guy who resembled Manjunath, if that was indeed the guy in the photo. The current attendent nodded in affirmative; and immediately started to take extra care in filling up and was more courteous ! But thats the not the main point of this post...

Just before we left the pump, I sought Manjunath out and congratulated him. He was extremely happy and profusely "tanks-saar'ed" me. Then we had moved to fill air and 5m after we left and I could still see Manjunath in smiles.

As we left I told my co-occupant that Manjunath is still smiling and he'd probably feel good for the day. Then I realized, the very fact I found that its something that I can point out to someone else and the fact that I'm thinking about a day later, that "congratulations" has made me feel good too...

So, looks like any act of kindness that we do to others, helps us to get in touch with our own decent self, I guess. Is it an act of kindness on ourselves ?
__________________________________________
ps: The intent of giving such a graphical (!) explanation of the location of the petrol bunk is, if at all, you pass thataway, you could stop by and do yourself an act of kindness ! :)

Whats it all about ? Second year on...

Hmm... I missed the anniversary - not that of ours - but that of this blah'g. I completed two years of blogging on the 22nd Dec. I blissfully was asleep in Chennai on that day. So I guess, if the anniversary has been forgotten, then I suppose the marriage has gone stale :) or its moved on to the mature phase of "content" rather than the "niceties". I'd rather believe the latter !

Through the year, I changed the name of the blog to 'thegoodblahg', perhaps slowed down on posting, added cricket tag, moved to new Blogger from google and new look, started (and stopped) contributing to a "Media watch blog" with a fellow-bloggers (which is badly in need of more contributions, anyways) and opened up another private blog that is very very dear and close to us.

Anyways, on the first anniversary, I did a word-cloud (of what the blog was all about) using snapshirts.com - which crawls the site and picks out the oft used words - i'm sure they are doing this syntactically rather than semantically ! I did one again now... Here is what its picked out...


But disappointingly, still no Floyd and Asterix - I guess those live in my heart and in my quotes!!!

Resurrecting the Champ

This is not about the recent movie starring Josh Hartnett and Samuel Jackson, about a boxer, washed out, living out a lie and finding a person-in-a-hurry-to-fame as a conduit to spin a yarn... Infact, I should have named this as “Crucifying a Champ – A step-by-step instruction on how to take a perfectly cooked recipe, and screw it up into a distasteful and completely messed up mish-mash”.

In case, you have not caught on, this is about Dravid.

Here is the guy who has amazing technique, a great temperament for batting, perfect gentleman, a perfectionist and consummate team-man; take him, add some second-guessers to it, create a parallel structure and slowly watch him disintegrate; He has been now turned him into a perfect specimen for a case-study on psychological experiment. Freud would be rubbing his hands in glee and would call variety of people – Greg Chappell, Sharad Pawar, Zaheer Khan, Tendulkar and Mr. D himself – Dilip Vengasarkar to get their expert opinion, for his case-study.

In my belief, Dravid is a complex man – a perfectionist seeking excellence in whatever he chooses to do and driven more by intent rather than agenda. He is someone who would look at the goal and hope the team around him will look at the goal and align themselves to achieve it without the politicking and without their own agenda. If you had seen him bat in the last few innings, it is clear that he is going through a crisis of confidence. Just cannot believe someone who played so well in the final OD innings in England could decline so fast – I believe it has got to do more with mind than the technique.

Flash back to recent events: He won a series in West Indies and then in England. In England, as a captain, he decides that he would not enforce follow-on – hue and cry were raised by people who cannot hold a candle to what he has achieved; forget the fact that Vaughn himself admitted that had he been in Dravid’s place he’d done the exact same. Then when Dravid talked about having his tiring bowlers have a rest, Zaheer Khan (who was earlier docked in the Chappell-Dravid regime) came out and says he wasn’t tired. Add to it a constant by-play with the newfound we-are-close-friends-now – Tendulkar/Ganguly combine. Then we hear stories about how Vengsarkar wanted the batting order to be changed. And you would think that Selectors select players and then shut the eff up; and the rest is upto the captain. But you know, this is Vengsarkar – the man who wrote in Hindu 15 years ago that the only time India cricket does well is when it has Mumbai players in it. No wonder, Dravid talked about shelf-life of a captain. He returns and lets Sharad Pawar know that he no longer wants to be the captain. Mr. Vengsarkar, hurt that he was not being told first, does everything in his power to get Tendulkar as the captain. Fortunately, good sense prevailed in Tendulkar. The worse is yet to come – someone who played a blinder of an innings in England is “rested” from the team after one poor series at home. If he was rested, then he should have brought back to the later part of the series; but no.

Now touring Australia, inspite of two specialist openers in the 16 – Karthik and Sehwag, Dravid has been asked to open to accommodate Yuvraj in the final 11. I wonder if someone could ask the same of Tendulkar or Ganguly – could be natural choices as both have opened for dogs years in the ODs. Dravid, I’m sure, agreed to open, although he may have had other opinions... I've actually now become a proponent of euthanasia, after hearing about Dravid's T1, innings 1 labour.

This could be pop-psychology – but Dravid I believe is a person who strives for perfection; and that too with great intensity. When you do that, then most times even a simple thing could become complicated. Not saying opening is a simple thing – but Dravid would have built a lot of what-if-scenarios around it and would have made it more complex than it ought to be. He had already talked about the change-over between innings as one of the what-if scenarios. He also comes across as a person who can get quickly get into a siege mentality and sink deeper into crisis of confidence; and the more he gets deeper into, the more he gets into point of no return. Case in point is his stagnation as a run-scoring opener in the warm-up game and in the first-innings. We see a completely different and tentative batsman – the guy who is intent on battling it out in keeping his wicket intact rather than scoring runs.

This had happened once, earlier to Dravid – when he was dropped from the OD team for his ability to rotate the strike and score briskly. At that time, two things happened – one, he reinvented himself and more importantly, he had a strong support from the leadership – Ganguly as the captain, had insisted that Dravid to be in the team in the lower order and also got him to keep wickets. That kind of unconditional support and faith was required to get Dravid into the mind-set of a champion. The rest is history – his OD confidence carrying into stupendous test forms, setting up a host of hundreds and double hundreds, leading to famous test wins for India abroad.

I believe Dravid is more needed in the test team and in the middle-order to provide the solidity that others can build around it and he has still 2-3 years in him. He certainly needs that kind of leadership support now – if not from Kumble (who is not much dissimilar to Dravid in mental make-up), from his team-mates, like Tendulkars and Gangulys. Dravid being, perhaps, the most self-less in that group, would definitely make the others look good too.

However, not very evident what would such kind of unstinted support for Dravid would come from. One place where we do NOT have to look is, for sure, from the office of Chairman of Selectors!!

Ps: On a different note, can anyone find a logic in screwing up three positions within the batting order to get Yuvraj in – The opener slot, the #3 and #6 and sacrifice an opener, Dravid and Laxman ? Why cant we just drop one of the middle-order rather than screwing up the set-order!

Same Difference !

Flying to an alien land,
At 30kft, I peep down
The ice-scape,
The dry brown,
Cloud’s feathery-cape,
The Blue Sea,
The green trees,
All that I see
Look the same,
In whichever lat-long I am.

In the distant land,
I look up.
The blue skies,
The Bright sun,
The twinkling-stars,
The silent moon,
The crisp cool,
Makes me feel,
I’m at home;
Heavens the same,
Even in the land afar.

Then I look level,
into the eyes of another.
Averted, looking away,
In unspoken judgment.
Questions unasked
of each others intent.
And questions asked
of my existence,
in his land.

Ah, for the sameness
of His creation
And the differences
in ours!!!